An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Pakistan on Tuesday acquitted President Arif Alvi, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and other senior leaders in a case related to an attack on state-run Pakistan Television and Parliament House by members of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party led by Imran Khan during a sit-in protest in 2014.

Other leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party who were acquitted on Tuesday include Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Labour and Culture Minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, Senator Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry and estranged members Jahangir Tareen and Aleem Khan.

Prime Minister Khan was acquitted in the case in October 2020.

The verdict was announced by Judge Mohammad Ali Warraich on President Alvi's application as well as acquittal petitions filed by the PTI leaders.

The president and several others were booked in the PTV and parliament attack case in 2014 during PTI's sit-in against the then PML-N government. Earlier, President Alvi had refused to avail immunity in the case and opted to appear before an ATC.

On August 31, 2014, PTI and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) workers marched towards the Parliament House and Prime Minister House and clashed with police deployed at Constitution Avenue. The protesters also attacked the PTV premises and briefly took control of the building.

According to the prosecution, three people were killed and 26 injured, while 60 were arrested. It had submitted 65 photographs, sticks, cutters, etc, to the court to establish its case. It also maintained the protest was not peaceful and the PTI leaders sought bail after three years.

Police had invoked the Anti-Terrorism Act against Khan, Alvi and leaders including Umar, Qureshi, Shafqat Mehmood and Raja Khurram Nawaz for inciting violence during the 2014 sit-in.

On March 4, President Alvi, 72, refused to avail immunity in the case, as his counsellor Babar Awan, urged the court to treat him as an ordinary citizen , saying that he did not want to avail the presidential immunity granted to him under Article 248 of the Constitution.

He informed the judge that he could avail the presidential immunity but he would not do so as he believed there should not be any inequality , the Express Tribune reported.

I appeared in court so that no one could say I skipped court proceedings, he added.

Alvi said that justice would continue to be delayed until everyone was deemed equal in the eyes of the law. He also urged the judiciary to adjudicate cases at the earliest in order to provide justice to the people of Pakistan, otherwise generations would keep contesting those cases.